Dark Nest_ The Joiner King Part 42

Cilghal turned to her a.s.sistants-a trio of apprentice healers - and sent them out of the room.

"That bad?" Luke asked.

"Yes." She pointed at the chambers holding Alema and Gorog. "I need to hurt them."

"Hurt them?"

"Inflict pain," she clarified. "Torture them, in truth. Not for long, and nothing that will injure. But it must be intense. It's the only way to test a critical hypothesis."

"I see."

Luke swallowed and forced himself to look through the transparisteel doors at the two prisoners. There was a time when he would not even have considered such a request-and when Cilghal would never have made it. But now that the Jedi had elected to embrace all of the Force, to utilize the dark side as well as the light, nothing seemed off limits.

They deceived, they manipulated, they coerced. To be sure, it was all done in the name of a higher purpose, to promote peace and serve the Balance, yet he occasionally felt that the Jedi were losing their way; that the war with the Yuuzhan Vong had turned them from their true path.

He sometimes thought this must have been how Palpatine started, pursuing a worthy goal with any means available.

"Perhaps we should back up a little," Luke said. "Have you made any progress at all?"

"Of a sort." Cilghal pointed to her data-holo, which was basically a flat grid plotting each subject's name against various brain regions, with colored data bars above each square. As the level of activity changed, the bars rose and fell, changing colors and glowing more or less brightly. "As you can see, all of our subjects display similar levels of activity in their sensory cortices, which suggests they're experiencing the same physical sensations."

"And they shouldn't be?"

The corners of Cilghal's lips rose in a broad-mouthed grin. "Not really. The environment in each chamber is different-hot, cold, rank, fragrant, noisy, quiet."

Luke raised his brow. "Doesn't that confirm your theory about the corpus callosum receiving impulses from other brains?"

"It does." Cilghal pointed at four red bars near the end of Alema's and Gorog's data rows. "But look at this. The hypothalamus and limbic system are the center of the emotions. Alema's is correlating to Gorog's."

Luke noticed that this was true only of Alema and Gorog. The hypothalami and limbic systems of Tesar, Tekli, and Tahiri remained independent. Jacen's readings were, as usual, completely useless. He was playing with the brain scanner again, moving his color bars up and down in a rhythmic wave pattern. It was, Luke knew, a not-so-subtle form of protest; his nephew believed that the Jedi order should have more faith in its Jedi Knights than in Cilghal's instruments. Under normal circ.u.mstances, Luke would have agreed-but circ.u.mstances were not normal.

"Alema and Gorog are in a meld?" Luke asked.

Cilghal shook her head. "No. They're not perceiving each ether's emotions, as Jedi do in a meld. Alema and Gorog are sharing emotions, the same way Tesar and the others are sharing sensations. This takes the collective mind a step deeper than we have seen before."

Thinking of the Will that Formbi had described, Luke reached out to Gorog in the Force and felt only the vague sense of uneasiness that-after the battle in the Skywalkers' cottage-he had come to a.s.sociate with the blue Killiks that had been attacking them. But the data bars matched to Gorog's hypothalamic and limbic systems brightened to orange and started rising. So did Alema's.

"Interesting," Luke said. "This Killik is Force-sensitive."

"After a fas.h.i.+on," Cilghal said. "I believe she and other Gorog can use the Force to hide their presence-not only from us, but from other Killiks as well. What I need to find out is whether they can also use the Force to pa.s.s neural impulses to other members of the Colony-even those outside their own nest."

"And that's why you need to inflict the pain?" Luke asked.

Cilghal nodded. "I'll neutralize the numbing agent, but leave Gorog and Alema unable to move. If the pain is severe enough, Gorog will be motivated to reach out to the others, and we'll see the results on their graphs."

"And this will tell us...?"

"Whether Gorog is also able to influence the others," Cilghal said.

"We need to know that before we can begin thinking about countermeasures."

Luke's heart sank at the word begin. If Cilghal had not yet started to think about countermeasures, it seemed unlikely she would have any ready before the Falcon was repaired. And if Luke asked her to find some other way to test her hypothesis, unlikely became almost impossible.

Feeling just a little more lost inside, Luke nodded. "If there's no other way..."

"There isn't." Cilghal's sad eyes grew even sadder. "Not in the time we have."

She activated the electromagnetic s.h.i.+elding between the cells, and all the sensory cortex readings returned to independent levels. Alema's hypothalamic and limbic systems remained the same color and brightness as Gorog's, however.

Cilghal entered another command. A hypo dropped down from the ceiling panel and injected the neutralizing agent into a soft spot just below the Killik's mouthparts. A few seconds later, the insect's cortex activity began to fluctuate as its physical sensations returned. The hypo ascended back into the ceiling, and a flat-tipped probe took its place.

Gorog's hypothalamic bar turned brilliant white, shooting to the top of the data- holo and staying there. So did Alema's.

"Gorog is angry with us," Cilghal observed.

"I don't blame her," Luke said.

He wanted to look away, but forced himself not to. If he was willing to sanction torture, then he had to make certain it never became easy.

Cilghal brought the probe down to where one of Gorog's upper arms joined the thorax, then sent an electrical charge through it. All six limbs-even the two casted legs-extended straight out and began to quiver.

All of the insect's data bars brightened to white and rose to the top of the holo. Alema's limbic system continued to mirror the Killik's, but her sensory cortices remained quiet.

When the other subjects did not show a similar rise in the activity of their hypothalamic or limbic systems, Luke asked, "Is that enough?"

"Not yet. She must believe it will never end."

The Killik's mandibles clacked close, and its antennae began to whip madly back and forth. Luke reminded himself that this was the insect that had tried to turn his son against his wife, but that did not make torture feel right. Mara was spending every waking minute with Ben, trying to make him understand how the things that Gorog had said could be true and still not mean she was an evil person, and Luke knew that even she would not have approved of the insect's suffering.

Mara reached out to him in the Force, worried about Ben and curious about what was happening to Gorog.

Luke's stomach grew hollow with fear. Ben and Gorog were clearly joined-perhaps not as completely as Alema, but too much. A part of Luke wanted to kill the Killik right now, to punish it for trying to use his son against him, to sever the connection before it grew any stronger.

But a bigger part of Luke wanted to protect Ben, to spare him the anguish of knowing that his friend was in pain. He started to tell Cilghal to turn off the probe-then Tesar's hypothalamic bar began to rise. Tahiti's limbic system also began to show more activity, and Tekli exhibited steep rises in both.

A moment later, the trio's data bars vanished as they pushed off their scanning helmets and began to peel electrodes off their bodies.

Unlike Alema and Gorog, they were not restrained.

"Okay, turn it off," Luke said. He could feel Mara growing more concerned about Ben. "There's no sense-"

Cilghal held up a hand. "Wait."

Gorog continued to clench her limbs to her chest and whip her antennae. Tekli, who as a healer was a little faster at extricating herself from the equipment, emerged from her chamber first.

"I'm sorry," she said, marching straight for the exit. "I need to use the refresher."

"Of course." Cilghal swiveled a dark eye in Luke's direction, and he felt her interest growing. "Take your time."

Tahiri emerged next. "You need to give us a break sometimes," she complained, walking over to the console. "I'm beginning to feel like I'm on a weeklong X-wing jump."

Tahiri's gaze drifted to the data-holo and lingered for a moment on Gorog's bars. Then she turned to Luke with her mouth twisted into a brutal grin.

"Looks like I'm not the only one who came out of the war part Yuuzhan Vong," she said. "What's next? Jedi tattoos?"

The comment stung Luke more than it should have-in large part because he could feel his wife growing more worried and angry as the experiment continued.

"This isn't for fun," Luke said. "We're-"

"Tahiri, are you feeling any pain?" Cilghal interrupted. "Is that why you came out here?"

Tahiri looked at the Mon Calamari as though she were a dimwit.

"Cilghal, I'm half Yuuzhan Vong inside. The only thing pain would cause me is a religious experience."

"You're sure?" Cilghal asked. "You don't feel any at all?"

"This one feelz no pain, either, but that does not excuse what you are doing." Tesar emerged from his compartment trailing a dozen broken sensor wires. "This one is through with your gamez. He will not be party to a breaking."

He tore a handful of electrodes off his chest, threw them on the floor, and started toward the exit.

Tahiri watched him go, then looked back to Luke with the hardness of a Yuuzhan Vong in her green eyes. "Tesar and I must not be completely joined, " she said. "I'd kind of like to stay."

"I think we're through," Luke said, wondering if the revulsion he felt was for the Yuuzhan Vong in Tahiri's personality, or for himself.

"Isn't that right, Cilghal?"

"Yes, I have seen everything I need to."

She cut the power to the probe. Gorog's data bars returned to normal, and Mara gushed relief through the Force.

"We're through for today," Cilghal said to Tahiri. "Thank you."

As Luke watched the young Jedi Knight leave, he began to feel increasingly disappointed. He had no doubts now that Tesar and the others were completely under Raynar's control; that they had agreed to return to the Galactic Alliance only so they could sneak away from the academy-as they had all done at one time or another-and seek support for the Colony.

After the door had hissed shut, Luke shook his head and dropped onto a bench in front of the control panel. "I guess that tells us what we needed to know," he said. "They're all under control of the Colony's Will."

"Of a Will," Cilghal corrected. "Not the Will, as the Chiss believe."

Luke looked up. "You've already lost me."

Cilghal came out from behind the control console. "Like the Force itself, every mind in the galaxy has two aspects." She sat next to Luke on the bench. "There is the conscious mind, which embraces what we know of ourselves, and there is the unconscious, which contains the part that remains hidden."

Luke began to see where Cilghal was headed. "You're saying that since the war, the Colony has developed two Wills, one conscious and one subconscious."

"Not subconscious-unconscious," Cilghal corrected. "The subconscious is a level of the mind between full awareness and unawareness. We're talking about the unconscious; it remains fully hidden from the part of our mind that we know."

"Sorry," Luke said. "It's complicated."

"Just like every mind in the galaxy," Cilghal said. "This is an a.n.a.logy, but it fits-and our experiment demonstrates just how closely.

Alema and Gorog are controlled by the unconscious Will-the correlation of their emotional centers makes that clear."

"And Tekli, Tesar, and Tahiri are controlled by the Colony's conscious Will?" Luke asked.

"Influenced by," Cilghal said. "They have not fallen under the Colony's complete control. They still think of themselves as individuals."

"Then why did they end the experiment?"

"How often do you do something without truly understanding why?"

Cilghal countered. "In every mind, the unconscious has a great deal of power-some psychologists even think it's absolute. So when Gorog was in pain, the Colony's unconscious Will influenced its conscious Will to end the experiment. Suddenly, Tekli had to use the refresher, Tahiri had to stretch-"

"And Tesar became angry with us."

"Exactly," Cilghal said. "Of the three, he was the only one who had even a vague understanding of his motivations. Barabels are usually in touch with their unconscious."

Luke thought of the mysterious attacks on him and Mara, and of the Killiks' absurd insistence that they had not occurred. "And the conscious Will wouldn't be aware of the unconscious Will, would it?"

"It is the nature of the unconscious mind to remain hidden,"

Cilghal said. "That is why the Gorog are so hard to sense in the Force.

They use it to hide-not only from us, but from the rest of the Colony as well."

"Gorog is part of a secret nest," Luke said, making sure he understood what Cilghal was telling him. "The Colony wouldn't be aware of it-"

"And might well fool itself into believing it doesn't exist,"

Cilghal said. "We've more or less proved that, and it explains the Killiks' reaction to the attacks on you."

"It all makes sense, except for one thing-why does the secret nest keep attacking us?" Luke asked. "Raynar seemed to want our help."

"But Lomi and Welk are threatened by you." It was Jacen who asked this, his voice coming from the data-holo. "And they 're the ones who control the Gorog nest."

"You know that for certain?" Luke turned toward the data-holo and, finding himself being addressed by a row of colored bars, frowned in irritation. "And I thought I told you to stop playing with Cilghal's brain scanner. Come out here, if you're going to be part of this conversation."

"I know that Raynar dragged Lomi and Welk out of the burning Flier." Jacen pushed the scanner helmet up and, now projecting his voice into the air in front of Luke, began to remove the electrodes attached to his body. "And we know that Saba was attacked by a disfigured Jedi Knight-almost certainly Welk. I'm willing to take a leap of faith and guess that Lomi survived, too."

"Yeah," Luke said. "I guess I am, too."

"Then only one question remains," Cilghal said. "Why did Alema join the Gorog, while the rest of you-"

"Them," Jacen corrected. "In case you haven't noticed, my mind remains entirely my own."

"Very well," Cilghal said. "Why did Alema join the Gorog, while everyone else joined the Taat?"

Luke knew the answer to that, and he wished he didn't.